Watching a documentary on Hulu about Greta Thunberg made me think about where we are going as humans. Every generation with people still alive today has put in place framework for the subsequent generations to build off of. That may have changed now that Generation Z comes into adulthood and Generation Alpha continues to be born.
The Greatest Generation came out of World War II and created much of what is our present infrastructure system and connected the world with increased transportation use and drove the growth of the auto industry. The Silent Generation brought about the beginning of our technology age with the invention of computer systems. Baby Boomers built off of that to connect those systems and develop our internet system. Generation X became likely to continue education and seek information. Millennials have brought increased work from home opportunity and are swaying from traditional family structures and work schedules. Where does it lead with the following generations? Only time will tell, but they also will have to clean up the mess of all of these generations.
The threats to humanity facing everyone moving forward are being left at the feet of the generation just now becoming vocal enough to call for change. The problem they face is outside of organizational efficiency, they lack the means to combat these threats.
Climate change is forefront on their list of issues to fix. They will need help from every person from every generation to correct the problems we are leaving behind. The crumbling infrastructure that they will inherit must not only be replaced but improved to move from furthering climate destruction. Not only will they need better roads, bridges, communication grids, and buildings, there is a need to make these repairs climate sustainably.
It needs to be in building codes for every new building to meet climate standards. Material and efficiency improvements can all be made now and built on moving forward. Doing so will also make retrofitting more affordable and available to current buildings. We don’t sell toilets that use too much water anymore, but incandescent bulbs needed to be brought back? Changes in these codes can be done and also stuck to in the future.
Looking at the changes coming in the automotive world there are great possibilities. Hybrid standards should immediately be implemented and efficiency guidelines reinstated. Every new house or apartment should be required to have electric car charging stations. (Charging systems for the automobiles moving forward also need to be standardized to prevent the issue currently hitting cell phone companies with differing cords.) New businesses should also be prioritizing these improvements. It will be a great recruitment tool to offer premier parking and free charging to potential employees. It also helps with new to the workforce employees who are desiring to utilize electric cars, but may not be able to immediately upgrade an existing home or first apartment. Hotels should also be moving to this and be offering this utility to their customers. This step would also move rental companies to shift toward electric fleets where most of their clientele don’t require extended distance capability.
Public Transportation will also need to be more available and sustainable moving forward. The rest of the world laughs at our American inability to accomplish this service outside of some of our biggest metro areas. We cannot continue to ignore the benefits of public transportation and the saving of not only money but maintenance that comes with it.
Regenerative agriculture sounds great to the upcoming generation. However, they aren’t the people who can implement it and require it. That will need to be done through the current land stewards. Policy makers will need to also drive this change by pushing it in farm bills.
The epidemic of disinformation is also a direct result of previous generations and will need to be solved by the same people. What would your great grandpa say if you told him we have instant access to all of the information in the world? What would he say if you also told him that people spend more time pushing false information than learning accurate information? This is something everyone will have to figure out quickly. We can’t continue to allow provably false information to be circulated easily under the protection of opinion. Free speech is protected and should be, but spreading disinformation should fall outside of that protection. Social media and its connectivity needs checks in place to keep this disinformation from becoming mainstream.
They are also facing a racial justice reckoning that we continue to fail at solving. The children of today will face the same roadblocks without learning from our mistakes. The biggest of these mistakes is the continuing of white-washed history education. Every generation until now has failed to acknowledge our erasure of factual historical information. We continue to struggle to convince our generational siblings the problem exists and it prevents us from healing the wounds of that history. I realize I wasn’t alive during slavery, but my ancestors also didn’t pay the price of that subjugation (white people can’t continue to absolve ourselves from the oppression that we did not personally directly inflict). The healing of these wounds cannot be the responsibility of only the children among us.
Educational changes will also be necessary moving forward. Curriculums need to fit the future not the past. We cannot require more training for every aspect of building livelihoods while charging for that training. Generations that were able to thrive with a high school education can’t restrain current and future generations that require further education. The same as that high school education was once thought of as a luxury, today’s educational access must be expanded compared to that of previous generations. A society that requires further education, must provide it as well.
These are just a few of the great issues facing the upcoming generations. They aren’t just their issues to face, it will take all generations to correct the problems that we continue to pass along. We expect them to build on everything that has been framed for them. We must also listen as they tell us that framework is carrying threats to their survival. Upon listening we will need to join in their battle to correct our wrongdoings. If we force them to do the mending while we continue to do the damage, eventually they will give up on the mending. Every generation is responsible for where we are now, we are also responsible for fixing where we are heading.
Changed So Much! 